Jaguar to Panther - upgrade now?

[radhak]

Is this a good time to upgrade to Panther? Should I wait for 10.3.4?

What are the known outstanding problems with the current version of Panther? (IIRC, somebody reported a problem with wireless networking, or is that resolved?)

And also, how does the upgrade go - do i lose all the applications i have installed (like MS Office or DragThing) and have to re-install them, or can i work around that?

 

[dragula53]

upgrading

you don't ever really need to wait.. software update happens over the internet.. so 10.3.0 will upgrade to 10.3.4 automatically.

if you do an upgrade, not erase and install, you won't lose anything.

wireless networking works fine, my airport extreme network is solid as a rock.

I think samba is still overcomplicating things for cross platform sharing, but don't think that will ever be going away. that is about the only thing I miss about jaguar.

the extra speed and new iapps do make panther worth the upgrade though. iphoto in jaguar is a slug.. iphoto '04 in panther is just flat-out way better.

I think just about everything that was flaky with 10.3.0 has been worked out though.. like.. the long startup times, things like that.

So, I say yes, panther became extremely viable a few months ago.

Is this a good time to upgrade to Panther? Should I wait for 10.3.4?

What are the known outstanding problems with the current version of Panther? (IIRC, somebody reported a problem with wireless networking, or is that resolved?)

And also, how does the upgrade go - do i lose all the applications i have installed (like MS Office or DragThing) and have to re-install them, or can i work around that?

 

[phillymjs]

Panther has been out long enough that it is fairly mature. If you use your Mac for business, do some research before upgrading and make absolutely sure your critical apps have no outstanding issues with Panther. If everything is okay from that standpoint, go for it.

If you do an OS upgrade, you do not have to reinstall all your software, but you may want to see if there are any newer versions of apps or patches available for them to address any problems with Panther-- especially utilities that augment the GUI. If there are, install those before you upgrade the OS if possible.

~Philly

 

[gopher]

Is this a good time to upgrade to Panther? Should I wait for 10.3.4?

What are the known outstanding problems with the current version of Panther? (IIRC, somebody reported a problem with wireless networking, or is that resolved?)

And also, how does the upgrade go - do i lose all the applications i have installed (like MS Office or DragThing) and have to re-install them, or can i work around that?

The most notable problem with Panther is the Firewire bug:

http://www.macmaps.com/firewirebug.html

And with 10.3.3 some USB devices failing which the above page covers.

Also it is highly recommended you repair permissions before and after every update. Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility -> First Aid -> select hard disk and click repair permissions.

Be sure to have at least 3.5 GB of space before installing Panther.

And if you have 10.2 you don't have to worry about it, but if you have an earlier version of X or 9, make sure your firmware is up to date:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117

and make sure when you do install over an existing X install to Archive and Install:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120

 

[gopher]

Is this a good time to upgrade to Panther? Should I wait for 10.3.4?

What are the known outstanding problems with the current version of Panther? (IIRC, somebody reported a problem with wireless networking, or is that resolved?)

And also, how does the upgrade go - do i lose all the applications i have installed (like MS Office or DragThing) and have to re-install them, or can i work around that?

Also I might add, it is a good idea to verify any system addons you have to your computer that they are updated for Panther before installing. If no update exists, I'd uninstall those addons.

 

[radhak]

Thanks guys, for the input and the confidence vote. I need this only for personal use, so the question was more precautionary than critical (after all, so many are using Panther by now!).

I think samba is still overcomplicating things for cross platform sharing, but don't think that will ever be going away. that is about the only thing I miss about jaguar.

Is this the file-sharing with Windows? I do that extensively now, so will it not work, or work differently?